Homework does have merits

LEARNING does not take place only in the classroom but also outside the classroom. It does not stop as soon as a child leaves the classroom but continues on the ground, on the road and in the home.

Much of it is not formal but incidental. In fact, the most crucial stages of a child’s physical and mental development occur even before a child goes to school – at home where parents, especially the mother, is the teacher. It is with this in mind that children are given homework. It’s an extension of learning done in the classroom. It’s a wrong concept to say that formal education must only take place within the confines of the classroom. Good parents will not fuss over helping their children.

I read with interest the various arguments for and against homework in the newspapers. One in particular caught my eye: “Homework is the most evil system unleashed on a family unit.”

Nothing worse than homework? Not television with its violence and explicit sex and nudity, the cellphone-crazy world and all that crap that goes on on social media? How myopic can one be!

Yes, it’s true that all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Children must have time for recreational activities. The Cape Town school which is causing all the controversy with its no homework policy, says it’s working. This may work in middle-class homes, with their big yards, but not in the townships – where people live in fear and children never go outside to play.

Even if they do, where can they play but on the road? The argument that schools overload the children with homework can easily be addressed.

In the past there were guidelines as to how much homework pupils were given in each grade. Why are the guidelines not being followed now?

But the biggest argument against doing away with homework must be that you cannot take a First World concept and attach it to a Third World educational system. It will be rejected. The education department tried it with OBE and it was a disaster.

I don’t think homework is a conundrum. It’s been part of the school system for ages. We don’t have to dump everything into the rubbish bin simply because it’s old.

Colonial monuments must fall, #FeesMustFall, homework must fall and why not examinations must fall? As it is, it’s such a sham!

THYAGARAJ MARKANDAN

Silverglen